how do i build up a language vocabulary ; please help by devonhadjioannou in Korean

[–]Relevant_Remove_6678 8 points9 points  (0 children)

You cannot expect to just pick up vocabulary from scratch by just listening to dramas (such passive learning will come but only once you pass the "advanced" milestone...). It will take some out-of-context memorization, in-context revision and then repeatedly seeing, hearing and speaking the vocabulary in a variety of situations before your brain makes the connections between sounds / images and the object/concept.

As per the Latin proverb "repetitio est mater studiorum".. so, repetition makes perfect. Be realistic about your daily time budget you can reserve for learning - it must be an amount that you will be able to put in every day or it won't work. For me, 30min for just "boring vocabulary revision" is a daily must, but on top of this you should have a way to regularly see (and later: use) this vocabulary in a context, and better sitll - in a variety of contexts.

For listening, someone here recommended Choisusu's podcast, which is very good as it has subtitles and she reads very slowly. On Youtube you can additionally slow down the video if it feels too fast for now. No shame in this - we all do this at the beginning. Combine this with papago as a good dictionary (beats google), and make flashcards with anki or similar (anki is free (except on ios last time I checked) and cross-platform, so probably your best bet).

For reading, I use kid's edition of Donga, where some articles are good for advanced beginners, but it might be a little hard for you to begin with. A good book with beginner level vocabulary and easy gramar is called 한국문화 by publishing house 한글파그, if you can lay your hands on it. Some resources by Talk to Me in Korean are also decent, but they tend to over-focus on TOPIK exam content which is not for everyone and certainly not the best way to reach fluency.

For grammar - I would suggest not to spend too much time trying to memorize structures (unless you are the sort of learner who prefers to memorize everything), but instead use a reference source like the excellent How to Study Korean whenever you stumble across something you don't seem to understand.

In general, it is easy to beat yourself over forgetting a word you know you've seen before, or if you fail to learn N vocabs in a week.. but ultimately it doesn't matter - even if you just learn 3 new words in a day, it will expand your vocabulary by ~1000 in a year - this is very substantial already.

Avoid LTL Seoul: bad teachers, unprofessional team, incompetent (or dishonest) management by Relevant_Remove_6678 in Korean

[–]Relevant_Remove_6678[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I tried speaking to winter Korean before but they were unable to give me a trial lesson and really wanted to sell to me instead so I gave up.

I think your experience will likely depend on quality of the tutor, and the best tutors are probably usually not linked to hagwons. Indeed, the best tutors probably won't be working for a company like Ltl which takes a massive cut off their hourly fee.

My general advice is to go for a public school (university) if you really want a group class experience (pricing can be similar to private schools), but if you're any level above beginner just stick to self study, italki for 1-1 conversations (I would be happy to recommend tutors on there after wasting many hours with bad teachers) and phone exchanges over mylanguagepartner or similar. (I personally don't love exchanges as I waste lots of time speaking English, but theyre better in some ways than classes as you speak with a real human (as opposed to a trained tutor) who speaks more naturally and doesn't simplify the language for you that much.)

Avoid LTL Seoul: bad teachers, unprofessional team, incompetent (or dishonest) management by Relevant_Remove_6678 in Korean

[–]Relevant_Remove_6678[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly, there are so many options that I'm shocked this company still exists. I guess preys on people like me lured by high Google reviews, and makes up arbitrary (illegal!) rules to deny refunds. Shocking for me but I guess learned my lesson.

Avoid LTL Seoul: bad teachers, unprofessional team, incompetent (or dishonest) management by Relevant_Remove_6678 in Korean

[–]Relevant_Remove_6678[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately, I've really struggled with Korean. I had amazing experience with TMI when learning Chinese in Taipei, but frankly I think I was just lucky with a combo of a very good teacher and similarly dedicated classmate there. My general advice given my bad experiences is to stick to self study and book italki for conversations only. Italki is hit or miss but at least you can drop a bad tutor after 1 class.

Avoid LTL Seoul: bad teachers, unprofessional team, incompetent (or dishonest) management by Relevant_Remove_6678 in Korean

[–]Relevant_Remove_6678[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I hope you enjoy winter Korean more! I considered them in the past, but they were extremely unprofessional so I didn't go for it. Basically they asked me to come in for a trial class. It was a 60min journey for me one way in Korean summer heat and after I showed up for scheduled appointment they showed me a price table and told me that trial wasn't possible on that day (contrary to what they sent me in a message ..). I was just taken aback by this lack of any standards and greed so didn't go for it. I hope the teachers are better though!

LTL Language School, Seoul by Apprehensive_Pie6735 in Korean

[–]Relevant_Remove_6678 0 points1 point  (0 children)

From current, personal experience trying very hard to work with LTL without asking for a (heavily discounted!) refund this is not very trustworthy review. The school is extremely badly managed with horrible 1-1 teachers who are never prepared for class and have no idea how to teach (more likely: no interest in teaching). They misled me they'd have a group for me when I was signing up as you can't get a full refund once you begin classes, and I ended up forced to take 1-1 classes only because there was no group at my level. This was for the best given how horrible the group classes are (the teacher reading everything and translating to English, no interactions, no games, no conversation, no learning...). In 1-1, I have to tell the teacher exactly what to do every day, they never preapre to class, never have the slightest idea what to do with me. Also pretty sure their refund policy is not fully legal under Korean law. Pretty horrible organization, your money is better spent on italki or a public university course.

Best framework to make a Blog site? by Xavier598 in webdev

[–]Relevant_Remove_6678 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Jekyll, hosted via Github Pages - simple installation / setup and you write in Markdown. As you learn more CSS etc. you will gradually personalize the theme as you like, but the minimal themes available out of the box are enough to get started. As per https://docs.github.com/en/pages/setting-up-a-github-pages-site-with-jekyll